mark_h
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Jan 5, 2008
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You may ask why I am reviewing two oldish CD players when there are newer, better players around, well I'll tell ya! I want a player that best replicates analogue playback, so I have been searching, reading, listening and I narrowed the field to these two...
Ok I bought two Ikemi's, the first one didn't show (Paypal dispute ensues!)
I chose this CDP over many others because it apparently comes as close to the CD12 as possible with a £7000 price difference. Linn claim that the CD12 has zero jitter and the Ikemi is very close?
The serial no. Of my second Ikemi makes it one of the very last made. Good Stuff!
Aesthetics are one of the fundamental requirements of any audio equipment for me, product design should not be an afterthought. The Ikemi is a small, matt black cuboid (the pictures online of this player always make it look green or grey, it is not) it sits stoically on my shelf and seems to say, "You will either like me or you won't I really do not care what you think anyway!" It happens that I do like the look of it though I am aware many don't.
It has the "Brilliant" (Linn's terminology not mine) switching power supply proprietary "2D" DSP algorithm, 24-bit/96kHz compatible 8-times
oversampling Pacific MicrosonicsTM PMD200 HDCD® conversion and a
3.5-bit multi-level Delta-Sigma modulation? Balanced and RCA analogue output Digital toslink etc.
The player is going head to head with my Meridian 506.18, I absolutely love the sound of the Meridian, I never tire of listening to its smooth analogue-like presentation and it gets an equal share of play time with my LP12/Linto vinyl rig.
Other equipment Nordost Red Dawn, Stax T1, O2's
Albums listened to are,
CSN&Y Deja-Vu (Because it is what it is)
Grandaddy - The Sophtware Slump (Beautifully engineered album)
Bjork - Homogenic, Vespertine (Her Voice!)
The Orb - U.F. Orb (I have yet to hear a digital format of this album that even touches on the vinyl)
Susumu Yokota - Sakura (Ambient bliss with peripheral detail like no other)
The Beta Band - The Three EP's (One of my favorite albums ever)
Scott Walker - Scott (HDCD)
Jane's Addiction - Ritual De Lo Habitual (I know it so well)
Aphex Twin SAW (See above)
Portishead - Roseland NYC (Roads!)
And a few more.
Now for the Subjective part!
I gave the player a couple of day to settle in, Meridian advises that a CD player should be left on standby rather than turned off when not in use, Linn advises the same for my Linto so why not the Ikemi, I duly obliged and left it on!
Linn is famous for A. The LP12. B. Not making a CD player for years after the advent of the media then releasing a £12000 one in their second generation of players. C. PRAT.
What I really want of a digital player is that it conveys music in the same way my vinyl system does, with emotional integrity, that is, my equipment disappears and I am left with only the music as the artist intended it to be heard? That the digital veil that has plagued my systems thus far (before the Meridian) is gone.
So to the music, after all this is what it is all about.
As I started writing this I put Takk in the Ikemi, (marveling at the solidity of the flimsy looking draw mechanism) at a low level, after about 20 seconds in I stopped writing, turned up the volume and listened, what an album! (And the first one that showed me what the meridian was capable of). I think that musicians often put subtle elements in albums for us to discover and it is the discovery of these details that make-whole the listening experience (particularly for an audiophile). Good equipment allows all this information through to the listener, enabling us, on successive occasions, to discover new parts of this information we may not have heard before, that is part of the thrill of new equipment. I am not talking about fine treble detail, nor am I talking about storytelling through the vocal, I am talking about information conveyed by the musicians, engineers and producer, all of whom have personal input throughout the entire soundscape and all of whom have an agenda of the sound. (Reading that last paragraph I actually don't know what I am talking about lol!) It is searching for this detail that sometimes makes extended listening sessions fatiguing to both ear and mind and poor reproduction i.e. Overemphasis of one or more of these elements that leaves us looking in the wrong places and feeling unhappy with a particular "thing" although it is often ambiguous in nature.
I am not going to go into bass and treble roll-off, or mid-band clarity. I think past a certain price point these things should not be an issue and with both CD players they are not, all presented with confidence and balance. I believe the defining elements, and what separate high-end products form their counterparts, are realism, instrument/vocal presentation, separation and sibilance, these are key to the success of these players and though one may not do it better than another, they do it differently, and therein lies the choice, you pay the money to tailor your taste. To address first, the latter, sibilance - With the Meridian sibilance was never a problem not even on the Roseland NYC and Beth Gibbon's rendition of Only You and Half Day Closing. Hauntingly beautiful songs, but difficult to contend with all those emphasized s's! My fastidiously setup LP12 struggles with these particular tracks and it drives me crazy! From both the Ikemi and the Meridian, they sounded, I imagine, how they sounded at the concert.
It is this album also that reveals the depth and accuracy of detail the Ikemi reveals, should you wish to explore the environment in which the album was recorded or some of the effect processors used in its recording, the position and movement of the audience or the errors inherent in live recording, they are all there to muse over. For me, after the music, the magic of any recording is the human elements and faults that no amount of over production can iron out! For example, the foot peddle squeak on Since I've Been Loving, or the cable distortion at the end of Roads etc. This very final level of detail was there with the Meridian but clearly placed on the ikemi, a subtle difference but a difference all the same.
Back to Roads. For me Roseland NYC highlight! It is emotionally charged and sung with conviction, the audience clapping in time, the cello bow drawing its note slowly into the song, I listen to this track most often on my LP12 as the vinyl pressing conveys the emotional integrity of this song most realistically; the Ikemi came so so close I was taken aback! Dr Baker from The Beta Band's Three EP's opens with a piano played at one side of a large hall with the vocals recorded at the opposite end, the impression of this is so realistically presented by the Ikemi that they seem to extend way beyond the limits of the headphones, like my smile upon hearing it.
Every headphone/source combination I have lived with for any length of time has struggled to delineate the lower frequencies of Susumu Yokota's Sakura opening two tracks to the extent that I have not really had a clear picture of how the bass evolves through them? From the ikemi all became clear, I have never enjoyed this album as much and never so clearly been aware of all the subtitles that make this one of my favorite ambient albums of all time. I was for a time truly Sister Sledged! (Lost in Music).
I would go into the HDCD playback qualities of the Ikemi but the evil Microsoft killed off this format good and proper so I don't see many discs in my future.
A vague review I know but I am listening as I write and get distracted often and loose my train of thought. Anyway some pictures of the Ikemi and Meridian (Please excuse appalling quality they were taken with my iphone normally I would use another camera and edit them in photoshop but i just have to many albums to listen to!
):-
Ok I bought two Ikemi's, the first one didn't show (Paypal dispute ensues!)
I chose this CDP over many others because it apparently comes as close to the CD12 as possible with a £7000 price difference. Linn claim that the CD12 has zero jitter and the Ikemi is very close?
The serial no. Of my second Ikemi makes it one of the very last made. Good Stuff!
Aesthetics are one of the fundamental requirements of any audio equipment for me, product design should not be an afterthought. The Ikemi is a small, matt black cuboid (the pictures online of this player always make it look green or grey, it is not) it sits stoically on my shelf and seems to say, "You will either like me or you won't I really do not care what you think anyway!" It happens that I do like the look of it though I am aware many don't.
It has the "Brilliant" (Linn's terminology not mine) switching power supply proprietary "2D" DSP algorithm, 24-bit/96kHz compatible 8-times
oversampling Pacific MicrosonicsTM PMD200 HDCD® conversion and a
3.5-bit multi-level Delta-Sigma modulation? Balanced and RCA analogue output Digital toslink etc.
The player is going head to head with my Meridian 506.18, I absolutely love the sound of the Meridian, I never tire of listening to its smooth analogue-like presentation and it gets an equal share of play time with my LP12/Linto vinyl rig.
Other equipment Nordost Red Dawn, Stax T1, O2's
Albums listened to are,
CSN&Y Deja-Vu (Because it is what it is)
Grandaddy - The Sophtware Slump (Beautifully engineered album)
Bjork - Homogenic, Vespertine (Her Voice!)
The Orb - U.F. Orb (I have yet to hear a digital format of this album that even touches on the vinyl)
Susumu Yokota - Sakura (Ambient bliss with peripheral detail like no other)
The Beta Band - The Three EP's (One of my favorite albums ever)
Scott Walker - Scott (HDCD)
Jane's Addiction - Ritual De Lo Habitual (I know it so well)
Aphex Twin SAW (See above)
Portishead - Roseland NYC (Roads!)
And a few more.
Now for the Subjective part!
I gave the player a couple of day to settle in, Meridian advises that a CD player should be left on standby rather than turned off when not in use, Linn advises the same for my Linto so why not the Ikemi, I duly obliged and left it on!
Linn is famous for A. The LP12. B. Not making a CD player for years after the advent of the media then releasing a £12000 one in their second generation of players. C. PRAT.
What I really want of a digital player is that it conveys music in the same way my vinyl system does, with emotional integrity, that is, my equipment disappears and I am left with only the music as the artist intended it to be heard? That the digital veil that has plagued my systems thus far (before the Meridian) is gone.
So to the music, after all this is what it is all about.
As I started writing this I put Takk in the Ikemi, (marveling at the solidity of the flimsy looking draw mechanism) at a low level, after about 20 seconds in I stopped writing, turned up the volume and listened, what an album! (And the first one that showed me what the meridian was capable of). I think that musicians often put subtle elements in albums for us to discover and it is the discovery of these details that make-whole the listening experience (particularly for an audiophile). Good equipment allows all this information through to the listener, enabling us, on successive occasions, to discover new parts of this information we may not have heard before, that is part of the thrill of new equipment. I am not talking about fine treble detail, nor am I talking about storytelling through the vocal, I am talking about information conveyed by the musicians, engineers and producer, all of whom have personal input throughout the entire soundscape and all of whom have an agenda of the sound. (Reading that last paragraph I actually don't know what I am talking about lol!) It is searching for this detail that sometimes makes extended listening sessions fatiguing to both ear and mind and poor reproduction i.e. Overemphasis of one or more of these elements that leaves us looking in the wrong places and feeling unhappy with a particular "thing" although it is often ambiguous in nature.
I am not going to go into bass and treble roll-off, or mid-band clarity. I think past a certain price point these things should not be an issue and with both CD players they are not, all presented with confidence and balance. I believe the defining elements, and what separate high-end products form their counterparts, are realism, instrument/vocal presentation, separation and sibilance, these are key to the success of these players and though one may not do it better than another, they do it differently, and therein lies the choice, you pay the money to tailor your taste. To address first, the latter, sibilance - With the Meridian sibilance was never a problem not even on the Roseland NYC and Beth Gibbon's rendition of Only You and Half Day Closing. Hauntingly beautiful songs, but difficult to contend with all those emphasized s's! My fastidiously setup LP12 struggles with these particular tracks and it drives me crazy! From both the Ikemi and the Meridian, they sounded, I imagine, how they sounded at the concert.
It is this album also that reveals the depth and accuracy of detail the Ikemi reveals, should you wish to explore the environment in which the album was recorded or some of the effect processors used in its recording, the position and movement of the audience or the errors inherent in live recording, they are all there to muse over. For me, after the music, the magic of any recording is the human elements and faults that no amount of over production can iron out! For example, the foot peddle squeak on Since I've Been Loving, or the cable distortion at the end of Roads etc. This very final level of detail was there with the Meridian but clearly placed on the ikemi, a subtle difference but a difference all the same.
Back to Roads. For me Roseland NYC highlight! It is emotionally charged and sung with conviction, the audience clapping in time, the cello bow drawing its note slowly into the song, I listen to this track most often on my LP12 as the vinyl pressing conveys the emotional integrity of this song most realistically; the Ikemi came so so close I was taken aback! Dr Baker from The Beta Band's Three EP's opens with a piano played at one side of a large hall with the vocals recorded at the opposite end, the impression of this is so realistically presented by the Ikemi that they seem to extend way beyond the limits of the headphones, like my smile upon hearing it.
Every headphone/source combination I have lived with for any length of time has struggled to delineate the lower frequencies of Susumu Yokota's Sakura opening two tracks to the extent that I have not really had a clear picture of how the bass evolves through them? From the ikemi all became clear, I have never enjoyed this album as much and never so clearly been aware of all the subtitles that make this one of my favorite ambient albums of all time. I was for a time truly Sister Sledged! (Lost in Music).
I would go into the HDCD playback qualities of the Ikemi but the evil Microsoft killed off this format good and proper so I don't see many discs in my future.
A vague review I know but I am listening as I write and get distracted often and loose my train of thought. Anyway some pictures of the Ikemi and Meridian (Please excuse appalling quality they were taken with my iphone normally I would use another camera and edit them in photoshop but i just have to many albums to listen to!
